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University of Texas Bulletin 



No. 1970: December 15, 1919 



iL0-H02o 



The Peril of Our Public Schools 
and the Way Out 



BY 
A. CASWELL ELLIS 

Professor of the Philosophy of Education 







PUBLISHED BY THE UNIVERSITY SIX TIMES A MONTH, AND ENTERED AS 

SECOND-CLASS MATTER AT THE POSTOPFICE AT AUSTIN. TEXAS. 

UNDER THE ACT OF AUGUST 24, 1912 



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The benefits of education and of 
useful knowledge, generally diffused 
through a community, are essential 
to the preservation of a free govern- 
ment. 

Sam Houston. 



Cultivated mind is the guardian 

genius of democracy It is the 

only dictator that freemen acknowl- 
edge and the only security that free- 
men desire. 

Mirabeau B. L-amar. 



i^: 



The Peril of Our Public Schools 
and the Way Out 

Teacher Shortage Disastrous 

The civilization of Texas is facing a more subtle and se- 
rious danger today than when the Kaiser launched his le- 
gions upon a war of world conquest. Reports gathered 
during August from the superintendents of 21 typical Texas 
cities and towns and from a number of counties showed the 
following : 

1. That practically one-third of the men and one-fourth 
of the women teachers had left their positions in the public 
schools during the past year; 

2. That four-fifths of those leaving were among the bet- 
ter teachers ; 

3. That there were this year only one-third the usual 
number of women and one-fifth the usual number of men 
applicants for vacant positions. / 

4. That several thousand teachers below even our former 
lowest standard had to be put into schools in order to fill 
vacancies, and that even then over a thousand schools would 
be unable to open this fall for want of teachers. For ex- 
ample, Tarrant County lacked one hundred teachers at that 
time, Comanche sixty, and Erath forty. 

A study made during October by the National Education 
Association showed the same conditions still present. 

100,000 Children Without Teachers 

A more complete study made during November by Miss 
Blanton showed that conditions were growing worse, that 
over two thousand teachers' positions were still unfilled — 
those schools being closed and about one hundred thousand 
children roaming the roads and streets in idleness, with no 
visible hope of securing a teacher. Miss Blanton's study 
also indicates that, in addition to closing over two thousand 
schools, trustees have been compelled to put in about four 
thousand teachers utterly unprepared to teach — mere chil- 



4 University of Texas Bulletin 

dren themselves, often with not even a high-school educa- 
tion. 

In short, we have lost one-third of our best teachers al- 
ready and by next fall will have lost over one-half, and 
we have no hope of finding worthy new ones to fill the va- 
cancies. The numbers being prepared in normal schools 
and colleges for teachers have fallen off thirty per cent 
in America during the past four years. 

Cause — The 49c Dollar 

The cause is plain. The cost of living has increased over 
a hundred per cent while teachers' salaries have increased 
only twenty-five per cent. The average salary of the rural 
school teachers of Texas last year was $436, and the aver- 
age for the city teachers only about a hundred dollars more. 
The average salary for hod-carriers was $1220, for black- 
smiths $1700, bricklayers $1890, and machinists $1950. I 
maintain that we ought to pay teachers at least as much 
as we pay hod-carriers ! If we don't pay them that much, 
we shall lose speedily from our schools all those who are 
really fit to teach. I can't believe that the people of Texas 
will permit such a tragedy. 

MUST HAVE $^10,000,000 

To save our schools and our children, Texas must at once 
double the salary budget of her teachers. To do that she 
must raise about ten million dollars. Can it be done? Yes, 
easily, if we really want to do it and try to do it. We 
raised one hundred times that much in one year for the war, 
in the midst of terrible drouths and with over two hundred 
thousand of our able-bodied men drafted into the war be- 
sides. 

State Teeming With Wealth 

Now, the banks in the state have more deposits than ever 
before ; the Federal Bank in Dallas is obliged to put on three 
times the regular force of clerks and work twenty-four 



The Peril of Our Public Schools and the Way Out 5 

hours a day to keep up with the piles of money sent in to 
pay off old mortgages and notes; a hundred and twenty 
million dollars worth of crude oil alone has poured up out 
of the ground this year in Texas ; lumber, cotton, and other 
farm products are bringing about four times their former 
prices. The state never had so much money before or 
spent half so much on luxuries. The State Tax Commis- 
sioner asserts publicly, without contradiction, that only one- 
third of the wealth of the state is yet rendered for taxation 
at all, and that that third is rendered on the average at only 
one-fourth its value. 

Sources of Revenue Available 

I am not an expert on taxation, but even I can show a 
half dozen ways to raise this ten million dollars for our 
schools, any and all of which are constitutional and just, 
and bear only upon those who are able to pay easily. 

1. A state equalization and full rendition law with some 
teeth in it. This hits tax dodgers — civic slackers — only. It 
helps those who are now paying taxes fairly. 

2. A small additional tax on that one hundred and 
twenty million dollars worth of crude oil, eighty per cent 
of which is owned by prosperous million-dollar corporations. 

3. A small tax on the refineries that turn most of this 
one hundred and twenty million dollars worth of crude oil 
at slight expense into from three hundred to five hundred 
million dollars worth of gasoline, kerosene, lubricating oil, 
etc. ; on the packeries, the lumber companies, the lignite, sul- 
phur, and other corporations doing several hundred millions 
of dollars worth of business annually in our state. Neither 
the refineries nor the other corporations mentioned pay any 
business tax at all in Texas at present. Such taxes are just 
and are collected in most progressive states and nations. 

4. There are 330,000 automobiles in Texas, probably 
a hundred thousand of which are expensive pleasure cars, 
pure luxuries, owned by those who are able, and who should 
be willing to pay a small tax for the education of the chil- 
dren of their state. 



6 Uiiiversitij of Texas Bulletin 

5. There are over 500 estates in Texas valued at more 
than a million dollars each, probably over two thousand 
valued at over five hundred thousand, and ten or twenty 
thousand worth over one hundred thousand each. A mod- 
erate graduated inheritance tax could raise the entire ten 
million a year for our schools without touching an estate 
worth less than a hundred thousand dollars and without 
retarding enterprise or doing anyone an injustice. 

There are other and possibly better ways in which the 
needed money can be legally raised. The above are speci- 
fied merely to show that there is plenty of sources from 
which to raise lawfully and justly money enough to educate 
the children of Texas, if we will just determine to raise it. 

Enough Votes to Do it 

There are about ten thousand mothers' club members, 
more than thirty thousand federated club members, more 
than twenty-nine thousand teachers, and more than five 
hundred thousand mothers and fathers of children in the 
public schools, children who have no other chance of an 
education if these schools fail. All these men and women 
have votes and can get from their legislators any reasonable 
thing that they determine to have. 

THE REMEDY 

Let every mothers' club and every federated club discuss 
this matter at once and express itself and send a demand to 
the Governor and to its representatives that the Legisla- 
ture be assembled and our schools be supported adequately. 
Ask the Governor, the State Superintendent of Public In- 
struction, and the heads of our institutions of higher learn- 
ing in the meantime to call a state mass meeting and ap- 
point a patriotic committee to work out at once a definite 
plan to present to the Legislature. Then, when the Legisla- 
ture is assembled, write your representative and send his 
friends to Austin, if necessary, to help him fight the oppo- 
sition of those interests that put money above children. Let 



The Peril of Our Piihlic Schools and the Way Out 7 

every school hold a rally at once and put the situation be- 
fore the parents and have them inform the Governor and 
their representatives that they want their schools supported, 
and supported adequately, right now before they are ruined. 

Special Session Necessary 

We called a special session of our Legislature once to stop 
a prize fight. Surely our schools are infinitely more im- 
portant. Let every friend of education, every citizen who 
loves Texas, every patriot who wants to keep faith with 
those boys who died that the world might be made safe 
for democracy join actively in this demand for action, and 
there will be action. If we sit still and let our schools go 
to pieces for want of funds in a state that is teeming with 
wealth and luxury, we shall show that we ate not fit to live 
in a democracy but need a Kaiser to tell us what to do and 
to make us do it. 

A. Caswell Ellis. 
Austin, Texas, 

December 15, 1919. 



Austin, Texas, December 15, 1919. 

To All Friends of Education in Texas: 

After listening to the facts in the foregoing speech, the 
state conventions of both the Texas Congress of Mothers 
and the Texas Federation of Women's Clubs voted unani- 
mously to request each local club of these two organizations 
to hold a meeting at once for the discussion of the school 
situation, with the purpose of passing resolutions urging 
the Governor, the State Superintendent of Public Instruc- 
tion, President Vinson, and the heads of all our state in- 
stitutions of higher learning to arrange a great state mass 
meeting at which the whole situation should be considered 
and committees appointed to work out a definite program 
of action, legislative and otherwise, for the protection and 
upbuilding of our public schools. 

The State Teachers' Association took similar action, ask- 



imSL^r CONGRESS 




Unive7'sity of Texas Bulletin 



019 885 449 



ing the teachers to call a mass meeting in each public school 
for the same purpose as was suggested for the local clubs. 

There may be decided differences of opinion as to the 
specific method of attaining the results which are so urgently 
needed, and perhaps the greatest service which has been 
rendered by Professor Ellis is that he has a concrete sug- 
gestion to make. The mass meetings called for are not 
committed beforehand to any specific method of handling 
this difficulty, but out of them will undoubtedly come val- 
uable suggestions which the school officials of the state can 
make use of in determining the sort of relief which can 
now be given. 

Each club and school should hold such meeting promptly, 
pass the desired resolution, put this resolution and a brief 
statement of the facts in the local papers, and send copies 
to the Governor, to its representatives and senator, and to 
the educational officers suggested. 

We see no hope of avoiding further serious injury to our 
schools, except through prompt and courageous action of 
the mothers, fathers, and friends of education in the state. 
If each will act promptly and vigorously, and will continue 
to act till relief is provided, this serious crisis may prove 
to be the fortunate beginning of a new era in the educa- 
tional development of Texas. 

Your political and educational officers can accomplish 
nothing without the cordial support of the mass of our 
people. The people must act and show their officers that 
they desire and will have good schools for their children. 

Annie Webb Blanton, 
State Superintendent of Public Instruction. 

Florence Floore, 
President of the State Federation of Women's Clubs. 

Mrs. E. a. Watters, 
President of the Texas Congress of Mothers. 

Robert E. Vinson, 
President of the Texas State Teachers' Association. 



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